A poignant and underplayed critique on religious fundamentalism - Persepolis caught my eye first for its very original and exceptional 2D animated make, remaining faithful to its original graphic novel source and capturing the wrung life and anguish with splendid silhouettes and symbolic imageries. This French-Iranian adult animated biographical film however develops with much serious themes and narrations, going through a barrage of social and geopolitical commentary through the eyes of a young Iranian girl. The narrator, Marjane Satrapi, only daughter of an educated Tehran couple, traces the history of her home country starting from the Shah regime, its fall with the 1979 revolution, the rise of the subsequent current repressive regime - entangling quite closely with her personal life and setbacks. Starting from the rebellious 70's to the 90's through the Iraq-Iran war of the 80's, the dry humor and the raw criticism to the oppressive regimes with its meaningless nationalism and martyrdom are told in a quite poetic yet sarcastic manner. The protagonist buying Iron Maiden cassettes from a black market (since music, cards and other stuff are banned and sacrilegious in the oppressive regime), speaking out against a fallacy of an anatomy class on a veiled subject and her major life happenings instigated by the eyes of religious police are often clever takes on the fundamentalist regime by the film maker on her semi-autobiographical piece. For the sake of the cynics mostly, the makers have maintained a balanced political commentary, often mentioning about the hands of the "west" in manipulating the fall of shah or fueling the Iraq-Iran war from the sidelines. In a true ode to her origins, the maker's personal life is reflected as an epitome of her communist family, cleverly undermining the shallowness of much awed about western culture in between. Persepolis is a must watch. Absolute shame that this flick lost the Oscar race for best animated film to Disney's "Ratatouille"!
Review of Persepolis
